


make it last

by akadiene



Category: Full-Spectrum Therapy (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Teen Angst, unsafe tattooing practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8587417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akadiene/pseuds/akadiene
Summary: Quin's got ideas and Damien's got patience.A Full-Spectrum Therapy ficlet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short ficlet (coda? missing scene? who knows!!) set during Chapter 1 of [alan kaplan's](http://www.alkcomics.tumblr.com) gorgeous and thoroughly confusing webcomic [Full-Spectrum Therapy](http://fst.smackjeeves.com/), which is about teenage angst, love, and finding effective ways to deal with the eyeliner gunk in the corner of your eyes. And like, aliens. Definitely aliens. Go read it, and come talk to me about it.
> 
> You shouldn’t need translations for the French in this, because I tried to make it understandable given the context.

It’s half past nine at night and Quin’s got an old wooden pencil, some thread and a needle, the matches they usually keep on the back of the toilet upstairs, a little black jar of ink, a blue pen, and a bottle of cheap vodka with a third of a pint left in it all lined up on the bathroom counter.

All next to his and Damien’s toothbrushes and a tube of near-empty toothpaste. Red cinnamon with the cap open and a few dried dollops of colour painting the sink. Quin’s never had the heart  to tell Damien he used to hate that kind, always preferred the sharpest mint, and – now he doesn’t have the words to say he got used to the taste in the two years Damien was gone.

“So?” he says. Damien stares up at him from the rim of the bathtub with apprehension – eyes black as sloe and wide, wide, wide.

“Why?” Damien finally asks. He bites his lip and when his teeth come away from it, the indentation they leave blooms red. “Ça va faire mal.”

Quin shrugs. “Because it’ll look fucking cool, that’s why. Come on, don’t be a wormhole.” He sighs and spreads his hands out – his knuckles are still bruised from the fight and sore from clenching them so tight all day. His knees are a little tender too, from – well. “Of course it’ll hurt. Beauty is pain, et cetera, et cetera. Kylee got one last week and it’s so envious. So I was waiting for you.”

“Moi?”

Quin barely resists rolling his eyes at the – familiar and frustrating – disbelief and just nods.

Damien licks his lips and swallows, then shakes his head. “I don’t want an infection or get, you know, l’hépatite?” he says. “I don’t know the word.”

“That’s what the vodka and matches are for. To sterilize the needle.” Quin sits next to Damien and without prompting Damien takes his hand, twining their fingers together, squeezing, holding on. There’s silence and it isn’t heavy like it once was but it’s not easy and gentle either, not a space for breath between laughter. Instead it takes up room but that’s okay, maybe. They’re working on it – figuring out how to speak to each other all over again. 

“What’s this really about,” he says eventually. Damien closes his eyes and leans his head on Quin’s shoulder, his soft curls brushing Quin’s cheek. 

“Si ma mère le découvrirait,” Damien whispers, “elle me renverrait chez mon père.”

Last year at a party in some senior’s shed all strung up in mini Christmas lights even though it was March, Quin sat on the yellow seat of a ride-on mower to drink some piña-colada-flavoured cooler, oversweet and syrupy. He didn’t throw up on the steering wheel after the first sip but it was close – instead he hauled up Tayler to sit with him and gave it to her.

Quin turns his face and pushes his nose into Damien’s coconut-scented hair. Breathes in deep. Tayler had still tasted like the drink when he kissed her but when he closed his eyes it was okay.

“Damien,” he says. He pronounces it right because it’s always gotten him everything he wanted before – or, well, almost everything. “You live here now. With us. She won’t find out, and you don’t have to go back to Algiers.”

“Don’t want to risk it,” Damien says. He pulls away slightly and looks up. “But I’ll do one on you. Si tu veux.”

“Stellar,” Quin says, grinning wide, jumping up and pulling Damien with him. “You gotta – here, come here. I’ll get it ready for you.” 

He takes his time twisting the thread around the needle and making sure it’s snug in the pencil eraser, all the while explaining how it works and what he’s read on the internet, and Damien stays close to his side. Finally he directs Damien back to the tub and sits himself on the toilet seat cover, lighting the match and bringing the needle to it gingerly.

“I shaved my ankle,” he says, propping it up on the tub. 

“Charmant.”

“You know it. Here, the pen. I thought we. We could. Uh. You wanna pick it for me?” Quin says. He smiles. 

“Pourquoi?” Damien frowns but he takes the pen anyway, clicks it once and hovers over Quin’s foot.

A heartbeat of silence. Then: “You know why.”

Quin closes his eyes when he feels the pen touch his skin. When Damien unscrews the vodka bottle and pours some out in the cap to dip the needle in, he gives the rest to Quin who takes it gratefully, and then another slug from the bottle for good measure.

The pain from the needle is sharp and only gets worse, but Quin doesn’t look, only watches Damien’s face: focussed, forehead creased in concentration, a spot of pink tongue peeking through dry lips. An hour passes, or maybe two, and at some points Quin whimpers from the pain in time with the steady drip-drip-drip of the sink faucet, but eventually Damien takes a deep breath and sits back, a small smile on his face.

“Fini,” he says, “I think. If I missed spots I’ll go over them tomorrow when it’s less swollen.”

Quin looks down to see simple spindly lines, awkwardly sloped, right next to his knobbly ankle bone, and his skin is raised and red where the needle passed over it, and it hurts, hurts like hell but _God_ it’s exactly what he didn’t know he wanted.

“A tree,” he says. “A pine tree?”

Damien nods but doesn’t meet Quin’s eyes. “Yeah. Like the trees at –”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Quin touches his right index to the bumpy flesh and winces at the sting. “It’s perfect. Merci.”

He gets up and stretches, shaking his leg out, before taking the supplies and throwing them all haphazardly on the counter.

“What will your dad say?” Damien says, standing too. 

“Bah. I won’t show him and I’ll wear socks around the house, or something. Oh. He, um, I think he has Doug’s room made up for you,” Quin says. “If you want.”

Damien’s answering smile is tentative, and just fucking beautiful. “C’est gentil, mais… can I stay with you?” he asks. “Just for tonight, maybe.”

Quin takes Damien’s hand and spins him around like a dancer right there in the bathroom.

Later in the dark and under the sheets of Quin’s double bed, he takes Damien’s hand again, and it’s warm and soft and slightly calloused on the inside of his index from how much he writes every day.

“You really like it?” Damien whispers. It’s too dark to make out the shape of his body but it doesn’t matter – Quin knows it anyway.

“I really, really do.”

They fall asleep like that and even in his dreams, where he’s walking through a forest with the moon guiding his rocky path and Damien at his side, he doesn’t let go.


End file.
